The Heart You Carry Home (16 page)

“Nothing,” Becca replied. So Reno led her to a patch of grass just a few yards away and now they were dancing to a slow song together. Nobody else was there and nobody came by to bother them and the music floated out of the tent and over them and it felt like they were in a small room made of sound. And then, out of nowhere, she was thinking about Ben and the wedding and how they'd stood at either end of the aisle listening to the fiddles play. The fiddles had formed a kind of invisible room around them the way the music did now, bringing them together, and neither of them could quit smiling.

Becca started to tear up, but she didn't want Reno to see, so she pushed the memory away. Reno turned her slowly and led her in this careful way, because they were both painfully drunk. He turned her out and then he pulled her to him with his hand firm on her back. The way Reno was hugging her felt strange. She felt a sense of needing in his hug, something basic, like he was afraid and she was this person he could cling to—maybe the only person. And so that's what he was doing, clinging. And Becca's heart was pounding, because she didn't really understand what was happening or why she was having this effect on Reno and she was starting to cry again. This time, she didn't know why.

Later, Becca followed Reno into the maze of tents. There were campfires and music but no fiddles. Becca imagined this place as an army encampment filled with soldiers readying for battle. But who were they fighting, and why? Becca and Reno arrived at a campfire where Elaine sat with some others, warming her hands. King was nowhere to be seen, but Bull was there. People were talking and drinking and watching the flames, women sitting in the laps of their men, their eyes glazed with firelight. And now anxiety began to penetrate the haze of Becca's intoxication. How would she find her way back to Reno's bike to get her tent? She felt a stab of panic when Elaine said good night and disappeared. But then Reno came over and sat down beside her. As he chatted with friends in the circle, he ran his hand from the top of her head to the nape of her neck and then back up. And she started to feel her worry slip away. His hand smelled like cigars and it felt so good and it was making her shiver and she thought about the two of them dancing earlier and her heart was beating rapidly again. Then Reno took his hand away and her neck felt cold.

Later, when the flames started dying out and almost everybody else had left, Reno stood. He hovered over her so that she was tucked inside his shadow. He offered his hand and she took it, let him pull her up. She followed him from the warmth of the fire into the thick of the tents until they reached his. And then Becca understood what was happening. She realized that she'd understood it for a long time now, even though Reno was almost King's age and she had hated him and possibly still hated him. But something between them had changed. And now this was going to happen, and it was all right.

Becca stood shivering in the dark as Reno unzipped the tent flap. He held it open and she climbed inside. She waited. Reno knelt down outside the tent door so that they were now face-to-face, Becca on the inside, Reno on the outside. He leaned forward and she closed her eyes.

Reno pressed his lips to her forehead, his touch so much softer than she would ever have expected. She leaned forward slightly, waiting for the next phase to begin, but nothing happened. She opened her eyes. Reno had vanished into the night. The ghost of his lips lingered on her forehead, like a blessing.

T
HAT NIGHT, CURLED
inside Reno's sleeping bag, Becca dreamed about the Old Moon. She and Ben had been together a month, and he'd driven down from Fort Campbell to take her to the bar. It was to be her introduction to his coterie of fellow musicians. “These are my people,” he'd told her. “They're going to love you.”

“Even though I don't play an instrument?” she'd asked, and Ben frowned at her, like she should know better.

The bar was beery and dark and their shoes squelched against the sticky floors. As they looked for a free table, they passed a trio of musicians who attacked their instruments, oblivious to the fact that another band played on the stage just yards away. Meanwhile, people kept stopping Ben, giving him exaggerated salutes and making inside jokes. Becca trailed behind, a smile gelled on her face. It was too loud to catch people's names and nobody seemed particularly interested in her anyway.

As soon as they sat down, Ben stood up again. “Forgot the fiddle! Don't move!” He kissed Becca atop her head and then he was hurrying back through the bar. The band finished its set and music swelled from the floor, instruments appearing around bar tables as though from thin air. With nothing to hold but her beer, she felt strangely exposed.

“Hey there!” said a voice. “You must be Becca.”

Becca looked up. The band's lead singer stood over her, holding a mandolin under her arm. She had Nashville hair and wore a mix of cotton, silk, and studs. Becca felt the plainness of her own T-shirt. “I'm Katie Jacobson,” the singer said. “I'm with the Sexy Fiddles.” She nodded at the others onstage. “We've all been eager to meet you. Where's Ben?” Katie sat down as though the table belonged to her.

“Getting his fiddle.”

Katie nodded, though she didn't really seem to be listening. “Heeey!” she called loud and twangy to someone across the room.

Becca knew she should feel proud that Ben was talking her up to his friends, but she didn't like this woman in her showy outfit.

“There's my boy!” Katie exclaimed suddenly, bounding over to kiss Ben on the cheek.

“So you've made each other's acquaintance.” Ben put his hand on Becca's shoulder. This made her feel moderately better, but the next moment, his hand was gone and unlatching the fiddle case.

“You're up in five, Benny.” Katie winked and returned to the stage, her hair lashing whiplike against her back.

“An old friend?” Becca asked.

“A friend,” Ben said.

“A girlfriend.”

“Not exactly.”

“What does that mean?”

“Are you jealous, Chicken?” He grinned. Becca didn't smile back. There was so much they still didn't know about each other, wide gulfs of information. All she wanted, she realized then, was to reach a point when they'd lived more of their lives together than apart.

Becca made to say something about this, but Ben was distracted, wiping down the fiddle's exterior with a white cloth, fastening on the shoulder rest, rosining the bow, and turning the pegs. The instrument seemed like a toy in his large hands.

Up on the stage, Katie Jacobson laughed with her banjo player, their voices like bright major chords and too loud. If only Ben would stay put through a round of drinks. He was supposed to be a Southern gentleman, and gentlemen should not hop up onstage with other women. But the other woman was calling.

“Here goes nothin',” Ben said and then Becca was alone again.

Hard-driving bluegrass burst out from the band. These weren't the quiet murder ballads and fiddle tunes that Ben had played on the college green. This was music that demanded to be the center of attention. His eyes were closed and he seemed far away. Where was he, Becca wondered, and how could she get there?
Could
she even get there? Katie had her eyes fixed on Ben as she stomped her foot in time. Did everyone see that stomp for what it was? A beat that shouted,
Mine, mine, mine!
Becca folded her arms across her chest in protest.

Then Ben took a solo. A few measures in, his fiddle began to pull at her, like it could physically pry her arms apart. And soon, her feeling toward the music shifted. The sounds seemed to lift the roof clear off the bar, laying out the world plainly before her, possibilities multiplying infinitely, like reflecting mirrors.
If you played, you could have all of this,
the music said.
But you don't, so you can't.

Ben opened his eyes and looked directly at her; his expression caused a physical jolt. Becca felt herself lifted upward toward the gigantic hole where the roof of the Old Moon bar had been before the music blasted it away. She gazed at the Kentucky fields and far beyond them, the million lives she and Ben were going to live. She saw that she could take her time living those lives. She need not rush, because the slower she walked toward the future, the more time she and Ben would have together. This whole time, she realized, he'd been playing for her.

Dawn brought a terrible hangover. Becca unzipped the tent and turned her face to the air, letting its dampness soothe her aching head. She spotted Reno sitting on a nearby log, his head hunched over his knees. A thin line of smoke curled from his cigar into the air. Becca climbed out of the tent and sat down beside him.

“You've been here all night?” she said. “Keeping watch or something?”

It was a moment before Reno responded. “Keeping watch, sure.” She opened her mouth to speak, but Reno preempted her. “I hope you're not upset with me.” He turned his head to glance at her, briefly, then looked back at the ground.

“Not at all.” It occurred to her that she should feel horribly embarrassed for mistaking the nature of Reno's affection. And for the fact that she'd been open to it, maybe even wanted it.

“You're . . .” He looked at her steadily and she saw that his eyes were ringed red. “Oh, Becca.” He sighed her name in a long breath, almost like he was invoking the name of somebody years dead.

“Reno,” she said. “The letter?” She hadn't intended to ask him about it just now, but the request barreled out of her.

“Quit bothering me about that,” he snapped and stubbed out the cigar on his boot. Then he walked to his tent, climbed inside, and zipped the flap shut.

Becca dug her heels in the dirt. How stupid could she be? Thinking that she and Reno had come to a kind of understanding. Over and over, she was wrong about people. She had misread her father on so many levels. And Ben! The most colossal misreading of all. She turned her wrist over and unwrapped the bandages. She should have stopped after the letter
n
. She was her only kin.

F
ROM THE SCENIC
overlook, Lucy had given Ben a single direction—“South”—so south he went. Almost instantly, he regretted his decision to bring her along. He didn't like having a child watching him while he drove, and Lucy's phone wouldn't quit ringing. After the eighth or ninth call, she made to throw it against the windshield. Ben flung his hand out to stop her. “Just turn it off!” he snapped.

Lucy obeyed and stuffed the phone into her pocket. She looked down at her lap and started sniffing—a sure sign of tears.

Ben cursed himself. “So, do you live around here?” he asked, trying to make things better.

Lucy shook her head and wiped her nose. “Window Rock. We came up here on the powwow circuit.”

“You mean dances and feathers? Those things still happen?”

Lucy frowned and shook her head, like Ben was a hopeless case. “We're frybread champions, Ricky and me. We've won awards, been written up in the
Navajo Times
. We could do big things, you know? Open a restaurant. Have a TV show on the Food Network. But these last few years, all he wants to do is perform magic tricks with our money. He snaps his fingers and suddenly the cash turns into beer. But I guess you know all about that,” Lucy continued and nodded at the Breathalyzer. “Seriously. I got into the car, saw that thing, and almost got right out again.”

Ben had not expected Lucy to be such a talker, but maybe this was her defense mechanism. Like Becca's stubbornness. “I'm sober,” he said.

“Sober people don't need Breathalyzers.”

Ben focused on the road. He
was
sober. Stone-cold. And he wasn't going to get mad. He was going to stay calm. Like a normal human being. He glanced in the rearview. He wasn't sure he wanted the nephew listening to this conversation. But the kid was asleep, curled up in his silver jacket like a potato bug.

“But obviously you're trying,” Lucy added. “That's more than I can say for Ricky.”

“Are you always so chatty?” Ben asked.

“Are you always so antsy? You need to pee or something?” Lucy pointed at Ben's leg. He hadn't realized that he was bouncing it.

“I'm fine,” he said.

Lucy pulled her phone out and powered it on. “Ricky left a voicemail,” she said. “Let's see what he has to say.” To Ben's surprise, she put the phone on speaker. The message was over a minute long and full of sniveling apologies. At the end of it, Ricky broke into full-on tears. He begged Lucy to come back, swore that he'd give her the gas money, that he'd quit drinking. Lucy cut the message off.

“Emotional guy,” Ben said.

Lucy shook her head. “It's not him crying,” she said. “It's the booze.” She put the phone away. “So,” she said, drumming her fingers on the armrest. “Who's the white woman you need to find so bad?”

Since Lucy had so easily and quickly exposed her private life to him, Ben decided that lying to her was a waste of energy. “She's my wife's mother,” he said. “I'm hoping she can tell me where my wife is.”

“Oh, boy.” Lucy shook her head. “Now I don't feel nearly so bad for myself.”

After an hour, they left the mountains. The pine trees disappeared, and the air warmed. They entered a brittle, khaki-colored plain, all shrubs and dirt to the horizon. It reminded Ben of Iraq. But on these long, empty stretches without overpasses or buildings, he felt less of an impulse to scan for snipers. With few other cars, he didn't worry about other drivers. Going around Dry Hills or between Becca's house and Fort Campbell, Ben felt like a pot of water on a gas range; every time he cooled down, some idiot in the next lane started driving reckless, igniting a new flame under his ass.